


A Cuban Sunset

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Beachfront Property, Cuba, First Kiss, Fluff, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Rated for chapter 2, Relationship Investigation, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 15:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17880338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: There is a strange silence settled between them, one that Will needs to break, if only for his own peace of mind...





	A Cuban Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, folks! 
> 
> thanks for reading! 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at the same name. 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy :) Please R and R, let me know what you think!

He didn’t know what to say to him. He chewed their mutual breakfast with disinterested, figure-eight motions that turned the freshly harvested eggs and spiced sausages into a sort of unflavored mush. And still he felt nothing, chewing until he was forced to swallow and forking another bite. The food was nothing to him. The food was fuel rather than the expression of love it was meant and should have been. It was maddening, and not only to him.

Hannibal’s eyes would watch him from across the table, his lengthening hair now covering part of his forehead again, dipping slightly between his eyebrows that would spread a bit with each bite that Will took. He wanted a reaction, and he certainly wasn’t getting one. His invitations for Will to join him at the market, to swim by his side at the ocean, for him to check the dressings on the lingering surface injuries of Will’s wounds were all turned away with curt responses until the space between them faded into silence again.

He cleaned his plate. Always. He left nothing behind and washed it himself with easy motions after Hannibal had finished his own. He left it in the thin wire drying rack next to the sink, feeling Hannibal’s eyes on his back, and left him there in the kitchen where he would, eventually, leave.

Will would return when he would come back, hearing him usually in the kitchen. He would stand with his back turned, cutting into the soft skin of a peach with a thin bladed knife, juice running over his hands and dripping onto the counter. Peaches were always in season here, always ripe in woven baskets at the market, and the sheer amount of peach flavored salsas and tarts and hand cranked peach ice cream that was stocked in their house was almost shocking to him, but he had made himself laugh thinking about that fact that perhaps it was an extension of a fact that despite his ability to cook nearly anything, Hannibal did have a rather singular palette.

He said nothing during these times either. If there were still groceries bagged on the counter and tables and chairs, he would pack them into their respective storage options, moving around Hannibal who had taken to listening to the radio. A classical station, with an elderly host who introduced the compositions in a low tone with quick Spanish. It was on now, playing something that Will didn’t recognize but that Hannibal peeled his peaches perfectly in rhythm with.

“Did you go to the water today, Will?” He opened the refrigerator, taking out a bottle of beer, but didn’t respond. “Forgive me for intruding, I can smell the salt.”

“I thought about going fishing.” He relented, sitting at their table, legs crossed. His own feet and ankles were bare, still slightly sticky from the salt water, and he saw that Hannibal’s were too, a rare occurrence, especially with all of the grains of sand that found their way inevitably into the house.

“Was the day not up to your standards for fishing?”

“That seems like a loaded question.”

Hannibal faltered in his work for a split-second, long enough for Will to notice but not enough to make anything an easy fix. He liked to think he knew what Hannibal wanted. It seemed that, as per usual, his confidence was built on shaky foundations.

“Not at all,” Was the response finally, another peach pit tossed into the small trash can, a small stream of water to clear the stickiness from his fingers before another was plucked from the colander.

“I didn’t fish because I need to buy more line the next time I’m in town.” Hannibal answered with a small nod. “I don’t have standards for the ocean….Its the ocean. Not quite within my control.”

“That seems like a loaded statement.” Hannibal turned to look at him now, flipping his own words on him, a drop of peach juice falling to land on his bare foot. He didn’t look down, didn’t glance.

“Not at all,” Will took a long drag of beer, holding eye contact with Hannibal until the latter looked away.

They sat in silence until the beer was halfway gone, the radio DJ changing to a new symphony, the waves at the beach near their house beating a gentle pattern on the sand. Hannibal finished the last of the peaches, washing his tools before he spiced them, layering in brandy for them to soak, wrapping them tightly before setting them in the fridge.

Will expected him to leave again, to go to the living room and read one of his books by the dim light of their lamp. But instead, Hannibal turned off the radio sat at the table, the scent of peach brandy lingering on him, mingling with Will’s beer. “Tell me, Will,” He found himself unable to look away from Hannibal’s eyes, distracted for a millisecond by the small scar cutting across his cheekbone. “What are your standards?”

“For fishing?”

“No.”

He drank the rest of his beer in long, slow motions that made the sharp lines of Hannibal’s face contract with mild impatience. But, what was not clear to Hannibal was that he was not speaking out of some desperate need to withhold information, but rather because there was no clarity for his words to follow.  

He opened the sliding glass door, walking out into the yard towards the water.

 

 

He stood, ankles sinking steadily into the sand, until the glint on the water that had been caused by the sun changed to a pale reflection of the moon. Then he let himself sit, let the water climb over him until he was fully covered by the edge of the tide, water cresting on his crossed legs. He waited, not sure what he was waiting for until it arrived.

And it arrived just after he saw his first dolphin, its fin cresting over the top ridge not far from the shoreline. Hannibal situated himself into the sand next to him, his long legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, wrists resting on his legs, hands clasped between them.

“I didn’t think you would sit here,” Will said, feeling refreshingly honest, his skin feeling alive. Whether it was due to sun exposure or some other thing, he couldn’t’ say yet.

“Do you think so little of me, Will?” He knew Hannibal was looking at him, but he kept his eyes forward to the sea. “That a bit of water would begrudge the chance to watch this night fade fast with you.”

“I thought it would be the sand, actually.”

He expected Hannibal to laugh, or at least for a hint of one to come from him. Instead, there was silence, the soft scratch of Hannibal’s shirt as he pressed his chin to his upper arm. “Tell me, Will.” He wanted to look at Hannibal, desperately so. But he couldn’t manage the glance and instead closed his eyes, letting his words and the water wash over him. “Do you chose not to speak to me? Or do you find it difficult given everything that has transpired?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You had a family, Will. Though I consider your radiance to be well beyond their understanding, I have to assume you blame me in some way for the loss of that. Or the comfort that it may have offered.”

Will blinked, salt stinging his eyes. It was the first time, since he had ridden off with Hannibal in the stolen cruiser that Will had thought about Molly and Walter. That he could picture them so vividly that they could very well be in front of him, Molly with her hand around a dog’s collar, Wally being chased in circles by one of the larger ones. He expected an ache for them, the one he had felt in his first days on the Dolarhyde case, but it was gone. Replaced with blood and breath.

“You gave me a family, Hannibal.”

“I took that one away, too.” Not even this conversation, as quieted as it was, could bring Abigail back in full force. Those memories were his and his alone. For now, he could not share them. Not even with Hannibal.

“I forgave you already for that,” And he had, sealing those moments of his past behind him.

“Still you will not speak to me.”

“I’m not angry with you, Hannibal.” Will said, and sighed. He wondered how they must look to the neighbors. Sitting in the water with their backs to the world, speaking softly. He had the bizarre thought that they might smile seeing them there. “I lack clarity.”

“Regarding our situation?”

Will laughed out loud, and even Hannibal couldn’t manage to hide his surprise, stiffening next to him. “I suppose that is one way of phrasing it. I’m very aware of how we ended up here, so that isn’t what I mean.”

“Clarity, then, on my expectations of you?” He finally managed to look at Hannibal, and he felt linked to him as if they had forged an electric chain. Hannibal was grieving, grieving what he thought was the loss of understanding, brought on by Will’s silence. Perhaps, Will thought to himself, he was considering killing him. But it didn’t seem that way. Behind the mask that Hannibal Lecter wore, there was concern. “I expect nothing of you, Will, that you are not interested in pursuing.”

“Meaning killing people.”

“I do not expect you to participate.”

“I don’t lack clarity on that decision, either, Hannibal,” He shook his head, reminding him that he needed a haircut. “If I wasn’t going to participate in that vision you have for us, I would have made sure we both died.”

He looked away again, a late night boat skimming across the water. The men standing on the top waved at them, beers in hand as they skimmed around. He raised a hand back in greeting, and the boat sped away, the noise of it quickly lost. Their neighborhood was quiet in the evenings, though it was close to town. If they wanted, there were bars and late-night restaurants. Though, if there was one person they might extradite back to the United States here, it would certainly be Hannibal Lecter.

“I’m not sure what to do with our relationship.”

Hannibal, for the first time really since Will had known him, stayed quiet, and he felt words push to his chest before dying down again. Swell and recede, like the waves, until they finally burst forward.

“I’m just not sure what we are at the moment. Where we are with each other. Are you angry with me about the cliff? Elated by that same thing? Are you still angry about what happened with Jack? Hungry after three years?” He felt the words flow out of him like water, his arms waving as he stretched his legs out. “You’re not my therapist anymore, so what are we? Partners? Was Freddie Lounds right?”

“Will, I—”

“I know you love me, Hannibal.” He felt the chain between them spark again to life where it had been a warm circle during his rant. “Bedelia told me plainly. And I’m not an idiot.”

“I would never think that you were, Will.”

“Do you think I love you?” He heard Hannibal’s breath catch in his throat. Twice tonight he had silenced him. Here was the question that had held his tongue for days. The silence that it was weighted with held him back.

“I do not know for certain.” Hannibal answered finally and vividly in Will’s mind was the image of Molly. Had he loved her? He had been certain at the time that he did. There was no reason not to. He had loved Abigail. Knew that he could have grown to love Alana Bloom. In a way, he loved Jack Crawford, just not the world that he had created for him. But beneath all of those ran an undercurrent of distaste. A desire for similarity. And that, he had found only in the man next to him.

“I do.” Will said, and breathed out, the answer so simple that he couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to consider it. “I do love you.”

He leaned back into the sand. He didn’t dare look at Hannibal.

“I’m afraid that still does not answer your question, Will.” Hannibal said, voice surprisingly even. “Of what we are to each other.”

Will did turn then, reaching out his fingers to Hannibal’s face. He remembered a past life where Hannibal had held his face that same way to keep him from shooting a man in a barn on the other side of the world from them. “I think I know that, too.” He leaned closer to him, knowing now why his skin felt so alive.

He tasted like the basket of fresh peaches, waiting for them in the kitchen.


End file.
